The House

Saturday, December 31, 2011

I have been a bookworm all my life. Bookworm being the old fashioned word for what is now termed a pathology, bibliophile?, loner? I have only recently downloaded my first e-book onto a cheap pad. It's Bleak House for free. I used to have a complete set of Dickens from about 1880. It yellowed and fell to pieces. Couldn't hold the books at all. I collect antique books, nothing fancy just what I like. Bulwers Works, Ben Hur, almost all of Dauphne du Maurier. I would be one of those folks with
shelves cutting through the middle of the living room if I could get away with it, piles of books like towers everywhere. Now I suppose I could collect books on hard drives, but that lacks the aesthetic appeal; or the smell. The new soy inks don't have that lovely off gassing smell of chemical inks. I remember the day I learned how to read, like lightening striking, like learning to breath under water. It was a fantastic, trippy experience as some part of my six year old brain exploded into
awareness. When I would laugh at jokes about Dick and Jane, I would feel a little guilty sadness because they had done so much for me. I won prizes in second grade for reading the most books, could read college level by the age of 12. Granted I can read and comprehend well, but that doesn't translate into writing skills as my high school teachers hated teaching diagramming so any syntax or grammar I have is by accident. I don't know anyone who reads like I do. My daughters have to read
because they are in school but they don't rush home to read like I did, high in the magnolia tree like a strange monkey. I have never caught them reading with a flashlight lost in a world of knights and poetry. They don't lie in bed all Saturday morning finishing up the last of a book that they saved for a morning thrill. None of my husbands read all that much, a magazine, Internet. My second husband was a lawyer so he had to read and he did like Hunter S. Thompson, but other than that.

So for the New Year I wanted to list all the books I read in 2011. I can't make a reading list for 2012 as I don't know where my mind will take me. But I can tell you where I have been. Did you know you can get a list of all the books you have borrowed going back at least five years from your local library?

1.The 2012 story: the myths, fallacies, and truth behind the most intriguing date in history John Jenkins
2. 2012: the return of Quetzalcoatl Daniel Pinchbeck
3. Bill Moyers journal: the conversation continues Bill Moyers
4. Clarence Darrow: attorney for the damned John A. Farrell
5. The Philosophy Book Will Buckingham
6. Pitchforks and Torches Keith Olberman
7. Reinventing Collapse: the Soviet example and American Prospects Dmitry Orlov
8. The Return of Depression Economics and the crisis of 2008 Paul Krugman
9. A Secret Gift: how one man's kindness--and a trove of letters--revealed the hidden history of the Great Depression Ted Gup
10. Shirley Charlotte Bronte
11. Small Plot, high yield gardening: grow like a pro, save money, and eat well.. Sal Gilbertie
12. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Anne Bronte
13. The Truth about Grief: the myth of its five stages and the new science of loss Ruth Konigsberg
14. Unhinged: the trouble with psychiatry--a doctor's revelations about a profession in crisis Daniel Cariat
15. Unscientific America: how scientific illiteracy threatens our future Chris Mooney
16. Crazy like us: the globalization of the American Psyche Ethan Watters
17. Cro-Magnon: how the Ice Age gave birth to the first modern humans Brian Fagan
18. The empathic civilisation: the race to global consciousness in a world in crisis Jeremy Rifkin
19. Empire of Illusion: the end of literacy and the triumph of spectacle Chris Hedges
20. Fractal time: the secret of 2012 and a new world age Gregg Braden
21. Girls on the Edge: the four factors driving the new crisis for girls Leonard Sax
22. The God Delusion Richard Dawkins
23. The great warming: climate change and the rise and fall of civilizations Brian Fagan
24. The green collar economy: how one solution can fix our two biggest problems Van Jones
25. Griftopia: bubble machines, vampire squids and the long con that is breaking America
Matt Taibbi
26. The hidden brain: how our unconscious minds elect presidents, control markets, wage wars, and save lives Shankar Vedantam
27. House of Cards: a tale of hubris and wretched excess on Wall STreet William Cohan
28. Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
29. Loneliness: human nature and the need for social connection John Cacioppo
30. The lost symbol: a novel Dan Brown
31. Medium Raw: a bloody valentine to the world of food and the people who cook
Anthony Bourdain
32. The other Brain: from dementia to schizophrenia, how new discoveries about the brain are revolutionizing medicine Douglas Fields
33. Passing Strange: a Gilded Age tale of love and deception across the color line
Martha Sandweiss

I also bought and read a set of four Ogden Nash, all of Dianna Gabaldons clansmen series, the last of Jean Auels cave bear series, finished Your Brain on Music and The Myst Reader. I read the Nation every week. In this small town this is little else to do.
These aren't exactly in the order I read them and I didn't like all of them, but reading is the most important activity to me and the Internet would not be successful written. Just when you think all the stories have been told, every issue dissected there are still ways to tell it and analyze it. I wish I could be a book reviewer. I think this year I will do that in my blog, just to share my joy of reading. I have started out to write books on several occasions. One was going to be about a girl who could fly and then days later at the movies The Boy Who Could fly came out. Then I started to write a book about all the books that impacted me as a child then I read in the Nation mag. someone has written I Read Books as A child. Damn! I wrote a poem a day for a year once and am still searching for the topic that I can add to that giant mandala called literature.
Happy New Year.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Here is the proposed resolution for seperation of corporations and State that was passed in Boulder, CO. The idea being that more towns and cities pass the same resolution.

Legalize Democracy and Abolish Corporate Personhood

Whereas, government of, by, and for the people has long been a cherished American value, and We The People’s fundamental and inalienable right to self-govern, and thereby secure rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness is guaranteed in the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and;

Whereas, free and fair elections are essential to democracy and effective self-governance, and;

Whereas, corporations are entirely human-made legal fictions created by express permission of We The People and our government, and;

Whereas, corporations can exist in perpetuity, can exist simultaneously in many nations at once, need only profit for survival, and exist solely through the legal charter imposed by the government of We The People, and;

Whereas, in addition to these advantages, the great wealth of large corporations allows them to wield coercive force of law to overpower human beings and communities, thus denying We The People’s exercise of our Constitutional rights, and;

Whereas, corporations are not mentioned in the Constitution, and The People have never granted constitutional rights to corporations, nor have We decreed that corporations have authority that exceeds the authority of We The People of the United States, and;

Whereas, interpretation of the US Constitution by unelected Supreme Court justices to include corporations in the term ‘persons’ has long denied We The Peoples’ exercise of self-governance by endowing corporations with Constitutional protections intended for We The People, and;

Whereas, the illegitimate judicial bestowal of civil and political rights upon corporations usurps basic human and Constitutional rights guaranteed to human persons, and also empowers corporations to sue municipal and state governments for adopting laws that violate ‘corporate rights’ even when those laws serve to protect and defend the rights of human persons and communities, and;

Whereas, corporations are not and have never been human beings, and therefore are
rightfully subservient to human beings and governments as our legal creations, and;

Whereas, large corporations’ profits and survival are often in direct conflict with the essential needs and rights of human beings, and;

Whereas, large corporations have used their so-called ‘rights’ to overturn democratically enacted laws passed at municipal, state and federal levels, aimed at curbing corporate abuse, thereby rendering local governments ineffective in protecting their citizens against corporate harms to the environment, to health, to workers, to independent business, to local and regional economies, and;

Whereas, the recent Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission Supreme Court decision that rolled back the legal limits on corporate spending in the electoral process creates an unequal playing field and allows unlimited corporate spending to influence elections, candidate selection, policy decisions and sway votes, and forces elected officials to divert their attention from The Peoples’ business, or even vote against the interest of their human constituents, in order to ensure competitive campaign funds for their own re-election, and;

Whereas, large corporations own most of America’s mass media and use that media as a megaphone to express loudly their political agenda and to convince Americans that their primary role is that of consumers, rather than sovereign citizens with rights and responsibilities within our democracy, and this forces citizens to toil to discern the truth behind headlines and election campaigning, and;

Whereas, tens of thousands of people and municipalities across the nation are joining with the Campaign to Legalize Democracy in the United States to call for an Amendment to the US Constitution to Abolish Corporate Personhood;

Therefore be it resolved that the State of (City of, County of, etc.) ___________ hereby calls on our (legislators, elected officials, mayor, commissioners, etc.) ___________ to join the tens of thousands of citizens, grassroots organizations and local governments across the county in the Campaign to Legalize Democracy in the US and to call for an Amendment to the Constitution to Abolish Corporate Personhood and return our democracy, our elections, our communities back to America’s human persons and to thus reclaim our sovereign right to self-governance.

Be it further resolved that the State of (City of, County of, etc.) ___________ calls on other communities and jurisdictions to join with us in this action by passing similar Resolutions.

Be it further resolved that the State of (City of, County of, etc.) ___________ supports
education to increase public awareness of the threats to our democracy posed by Corporate Personhood, and encourages lively discussion to build understanding and consensus to take appropriate community and municipal actions to democratically respond to these threats.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

I posted this on the local Occupy Canon City and have/will take this to our local party headquarters, taped it to our city hall and county buildings. and anywhere else I can think of. This will be my own little protest for the third month anniversary on Saturday.
Protests are a right of the citizen claimed by our founding fathers and reiterated in the constitution and numerous court rulings throughout this countries brief history. The Occupy movement in this country is a reflection and echo of the protests throughout Europe and the Middle East, but have a long history from the 16th century protestant reformation to more recent protests by corporate backed Tea Party and the success of Occupy to change the conversation from narrow corporate interests to the larger needs of people.
A very cogent and reliable source of the history of protest can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protest. The big question is; What are they protesting about? If you listen to Fox news and much of the main stream media they ask this question and then do not seek or care to listen to an answer. I can boil it down to a few points:

1. Give Peace A Chance

2. Greed is not Good

3. We are all in this together

4. The planet is being poisoned.

These are a simplification but create an easy starting point as well as giving all of us a way to encapsulate the point of the protests.

It has also been said of the Occupy that it is not organized. This is not true at all. In less than three months the movement has gone from 56 individuals in Zucotti/ Liberty Park in New York who were feeling discouraged by the lack of interest in their protest movement against the gambling hall that Wall Street represents. The first protesters were inspired and supported by Adbusters and a group called Anonymous who coined the phrase OCCUPY. The model of non-hierarchal groups, the hand signals, the break out groups from the larger General Assembly are modeled on the Spanish protests. The movements peaceful approach comes from Ghandi and Martin Luther King among many other peaceful leaders for human rights. For a more detailed history of the beginnings and inspiration of the the U.S. movement go to http://www.alternet.org/story/152761/occupy_wall_street_is_a_movement_too_big_to_fail/?page=entire also search “history of Occupy” on Alternet.org for an archive.

The intelligence, creativity and skill sets of the organizations around the world (a verifiable 900 occupy of some sort in the U.S. and over 2400 world wide) running the gamut from young and old, of all political and ideological stripes is not the product of unwashed masses, lazy or “hippies”. Lazy does not organize protests world wide that we witnessed on November 17th.Our two party system has been a partner in crime in the anarchy created by corporations and the lie that is free market enterprise. Corporations are killing capitalism by subverting democracy. Independent parties are to narrow in scope and have focused on smaller more myopic views on the “right” and “left”. The cry for the movement to embrace or become involved “like the Tea Party” in electoral politics would be a waste of time in a system so bought and paid for and corrupt. The system must be exorcised of the money interests. 400 Billionaires, 1300 multi-national so called American corporations, an approximate 700,000 millionaires (exclusive of the wealthy who are in support of the movement; 1% for Occupy) 12 mega banks we bailed out and a global ponzi scheme that is killing people and destroying the planet.. A pox on both parties houses for giving into the lowest common denominator among us. Greed is the last of the seven deadly sins and the wannabe rich are as bad as those who are old money. The concept of noblesse oblige, noble obligation of those who are in power to those who aren’t has been lost.

The movement has not failed by any means. it has empowered the powerless. The most disenfranchised among us have rattled the chains that bind all of us. The loud and bold cry of the “emperor has no clothes“ while pointing at the money machine, the militarization of our civil society is awakening the American soul. The movement has brought loud, musical artistic attention to the inequality that has been perpetrated upon us intentionally. Julain Assange of Wikkileaks said"; we are ants to them" (the elite). There are some who like the idea of killing ants just for the joy of killing them like the ilk that do nothing but judge, spit and defame their fellow citizens while wrapping themselves in the American flag, waving t religion in our faces. If you live in a utopia in your own little universe and you think the movement is trying to free load off your hard work and not bathe or think, that is the wrong target. 400 billionaires and 1300 multinationals think the same thing of you! The truth is the 1% have done more to extract from the 99%, in a form of free loading unprecedented in history.

I think the hopefulness of the movement, despite the natural tendency of humans to create social pecking orders (which btw the elite have used against us ) is a marvel of organization, skill set, creativity and courage . The hardest being, to face the brain washing of you and me against each other and the acceptance of the elite position of superiority over all of us. It is Occupy Not Destroy. The model for equality is here it has been co-opted by the power elite, they kill us with our love of country. The model is called democracy and we are trying to save it not destroy it. No one was listening to the homeless, the disenfranchised, the mental ill, the aged, the unemployed, the ripped off service workers, the fire man the police the teachers, the kids. No one is listening to the gasp of a dying planet. We write, we petition, call, we argue, we vote till we are blue in the face. We try to be polite, understand the opposite view, compromise. try to not cringe at words like un-American, hippie, socialist, dirty, lazy. Lazy doesn’t start movements, un- American doesn't work harder than hell to raise up someone else who is worse off. Stupid doesn’t' see the intelligence in the eyes of someone of a different gender, race, age, religion or politics. The few things that have been damaged by protesters have not been permanent and cost all of 100 bucks to fix all across the country, if that, and the movement has stepped in to cover the cost and clean it, and call to task those who would destroy. Occupy not destroy. Take our country back. Democracy and the Constitution are mine just as much as anyone else’s. Soldiers sent off to resource wars are told they protect America and the constitution, so does occupy from those who are anarchists who hate government by the people. The powers that be don’t want us to compare notes much less join forces. The lobbyist, political foundations, elite rich, bankers , financiers and monopolies want it all for themselves. We have given them every chance in the world to show that ideology and free market could bring prosperity to all. They have failed and they don’t want to recognize this.

I will be addressing local issues that apply to Canon City, Fremont county and the region per se. Talk is cheap and I hope that eventually we can as a community address the issues that plague us decade after decade. To that end I encourage anyone with an interest in dialogue write in response at viewsfromanoldwhitewoman.blogspot.com.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Perhaps its just menopause, but even though I have not gone through it yet, a month shy of 54, I feel something changing profoundly in my mind. Writing a blog ( which sounds like slogging through cosmic mud) is somewhat like writing to some odd god. I used to write in journals everyday, reams of streams of conscience. I once sat down and typed all my hand written ravings from age 18 to 28. After reading them from the exalted age of 30 I was rather surprised to find that I had wisdom at 18 I had lost by 28. It's amusing actually because of the phrase, let the teen run everything before she forgets she knows everything.
My second husband called me a dilettante. Granted I had a lot of interests but my inability to focus was not because I had a flighty mind, it was because I took time out to love and support another who did not support back. I loved theatre and dance, it was my life. He did not support it as his life and work were more important and I "had" to be his biggest fan to the exclusion of my dreams. As the Occupy movement grows from the beatings that are improving morale, I feel left out. My timing sucks. I feel left behind even though I have never lead so much as an ant band. Each issue that bubbles up and is organized around from Banker Usury, hydrocarbon addiction and its pushers, the necrosis called our political system, and the poisoning of our nest. I have done very little to help in anyway. There are days when all I feel I have done is eat, shit and make the planet die a little quicker just by existing. And then...I realize I am one of the few in my social sphere (which is the circumference of a dime) that has worked at paying attention. Granted not all the time, due to life dragging me around by the tender parts, but none the less...I felt it my duty to pay attention, attend, be aware, try to be conscience, grow intellectually as much as my poor little rattled brain could muster. Being the benevolent witness is the only comfortable rationalization I can fall back on. People have to work at being ignorant these days and it really pisses me off.
All the voting, poll taking, survey responding, petition signing, protesting, donating, supporting, arguing, bumper stickers, t-shirts and the three month garage sale I ran to help stop Black Fox was not sexy but it was all I could do. I am a failure. I always thought I would do more, inspire more. I still feel as if I should be doing more, be more, that I am missing my opportunity? What is left for me at 54? Not using my talents, whatever they are.
I chose to have three daughters. I have had a girl to take care of since I was 21. My youngest is now 14 a week before I am 54. I will be 58 when she graduates from high school. My eldest is 33 in February and in my mind the memory of her childhood is fading like colors in the sun. It seems so long ago. The choice was made through a series of errors actually as has most of my life. Hell all of my life is a series of errors. Wrong college, wrong loves, wrong towns. My mind keeps going to those moments "if". Not so much regretting as wishing I had....not gone to college at Northeastern in Tahlequah, hadn't had my eldest till later, hadn't moved to Norman, Oklahoma, had stayed with dance.
"If your Father hadn't died" was one of my mother's mantras when any trouble in my choices presented themselves. It became the cop-out for all my poor choices and her lack of help with those choices. I suppose it will be considered a good thing that none of my mothers children are criminals, but neither are we achievers per se. A life of near misses, brick bats and a deck stacked against me since I was born in D.C. All of my energy has gone toward recovering from prejudice, obstruction, sexism, classicism and ostracism and abuse from one quarter or the other. Powerful people began in my teen years to make it tough all along. I have been blamed as a victim of the powerful for not attaining the carrot of success they dangled as they led me to the cliff of failure. I complained once some 20 years ago to a friend I felt a failure, and he felt I was the most successful person he knew because of my willingness to keep fighting for what I knew was right. To keep finding my way back to the muses that called me.
I don't hear them anymore. I don't have poetry, choreography or plays sprouting into my mind. I am only keenly aware of the absence.
In the first few minutes after I wake I have a mini life of Walter Mitty. I imagined for instance this morning that I could start an Internet radio show, ranting and reading whatever strikes my fancy. I would go by the name "queen of Sheba" for reasons I will relate some other time. It won't happen. The other day it was going to go off ala Ansel Adams to photograph the wilderness before it is gone. I used to fantasize I would get the Pulitzer for poetry in my 90's. Got to be good at poetry for that to happen. I am not good at anything. I am crafty not artsy. I realize that the people I admire had amazing luck. They knew the right folks, their talent was recognized and fostered at a key moment. I think there is nothing worse than being innately gifted and useless. So smart and not being able to meet ones potential. It is a hell that drives you made without the complete oblivion. I used to think love would be enough, it isn't. That if I just was a little more patient, kept working on my creativity that I would find that satisfaction that comes with finally feeling in the right place at the right time. Not all out of sync, day late and dollar short, in limbo, muddling along, filling up space.

Friday, December 2, 2011

Published in 1935 in the compilation of his verse; I am A Stranger Here Myself.

THE POLITICIAN
Behold the politician.
Self-preservation is his ambition.
He thrives in the D. of C.
Where he was sent by you and me.

Whether elected or appointed
He considers himself the Lord's anointed,
And indeed the ointment lingers on him
So thick you can't get your fingers on him.

He has developed a sixth sense
About living at the public expense,
Because in private competition
He would encounter malnutrition.

He has many profitable hobbies
Not the least of which is lobbies.
He would not sell his grandmother for a quarter
If he suspected the presence of a reporter.

He gains votes ever and anew
By taking money from everybody and giving it to a
few,
While explaining that every penny
Was extracted from the few to be given to the many.

Some politicians are Republicans, some Democratic,
And their feud is dramatic,
But except for the name
They are identically the same

When a politician talks the foolishest,
And obstructs everything the mulishest,
And bellows the loudest,
why his constituents are the proudest.

Wherever decent intelligent people get together
They talk about politicians as about bad weather,
But they are always too decent to go into politics them-
selves and too intelligent eve to go to the polls,
So I hope thekind of politicians they get will have
no mercy on their pocketbooks or souls.